My Weekend

I had an interesting weekend. I spent it in the emergency room and the hospital. I've been pretty open about my medical history (probably more so than I should be). I have epilepsy - oh, excuse me, the politically correct term these days is "seizure disorder." I had an "incident" that didn't match up with a seizure on Friday. I had run an errand, and when I got home, my face went numb, my left arm went tingly and my legs went weak/heavy. That's not the symptoms for a seizure. I have a bit of medical background (mostly through my mother being a nurse, some because my son has been in the hospital so much), so I looked up TIA's on line. That stands for Transient Ischimic Attack. Now I was a bit wrong it exactly what it was. I thought it was a mini-stroke, I was a bit wrong. It is more like the body's warning system that a stroke COULD occur. My symptoms matched. While I was checking the differences between the two (stroke vs seizure), my son called from school. He was having another migraine, and wanted to know if he could take another non-aspirin pain reliever. I said yes and hung up. I was considering calling the school back to talk to the nurse and tell her that he had an appointment scheduled with the pediatric neurologist, when she called me back. She wanted me to email her a permission slip because this was the second time this had happened and they didn't have anything formal saying they could do this. I asked for her to give me her email address and had trouble spelling a simple word in the address. I realized I was confused, another big indicator.

At this point, I called my husband at work. NOW, at this point, I have to defend my husband. I was confused, and used medical talk to a mechanic. I told him I was either having a TIA or a seizure and needed to go to the ER. He had no idea what a TIA was, knew I had had seizures before and don't have grand mal but simple partial, and I didn't sound impaired. He told me to call his mother because he was swamped. I called his mother and she didn't answer her cell or house phone, so I called him back. He still argued with me so I hung up on him. By this time, my arm had quit tingling, but my face was still numb. My MIL called back. She had been in a doctor's appointment. She didn't hesitate, without even knowing what it was for, but I did tell her. Of course, she didn't know what a TIA was either, until I told her mini-stroke, once I was in the van.

After the CT, they said all the symptoms couldn't rule out a TIA, but they were inconsistent. So they checked me in for the night and scheduled an MRI. They said what was inconsistent was that both legs went weak/heavy. Usually a TIA is one side of the body. So after the MRI on Saturday (not until 3:00 PM), they ruled it a complex migraine.

I had found myself hoping it was a TIA because I didn't want to lose my driver's license due to a seizure. I had never even thought of a complex migraine. I didn't know you could have such symptoms with a migraine. They told me to get an appointment with my neurologist. Funny thing is, that morning, right before the errand I ran, I had made an appointment with my neurologist. They have me on Topamax. It causes severe short term memory loss. I used to hold the entire Russian fleet statistics in my head; I used to have the movie collection of my son (close to 100) plus his cd's, DVD's and cassette tapes so that when he wanted a new one I could say, "No, you already own that one." Now, I can't remember when to pay the mortgage, or IF I payed the mortgage. I can't remember to balance the checkbook at the end of the month when the statement comes in. I can't remember to get something out for dinner. I can't remember the surgery dates of my son. Things are falling out my ears. I know it's the Topamax, because I can remember other things if I sit down and try. I lose names, but they eventually come to me. I feel like an Alzheimer's patient sometimes. Given enough time, I can come up with it. But sometimes I don't have that time. For someone who considered herself fairly intelligent, it's somewhat a slap in the face.

I try to think maybe it's a God thing. God uses even our weaknesses to show how powerful He is. Not that I've done anything great, but what I've done for Him, He's done. I never would have been able to have done it on my own, in my own strength. My memory abilities only prove that.

Hopefully, changing medications will alleviate some of the problems. I would even put up with migraines again to have my memory back. I can now sympathize with Alzheimer's patients, though. Early stage get combatant because they know they should know....and they morn who they used to be.